birkenstocks and other problems
by dicaeopolis
Summary: Nishinoya Yuu has 99 problems, and Azumane Asahi is all of them. Or, "tiny panicking bisexual meets tall panicking lesbian". (Rule 63)


Nishinoya had a problem, and it was wearing birkenstocks.

The problem's name was Azumane Asahi, a wing spiker who, even as a second-year, held the title of ace. The problem wasn't that she was a wing spiker or a second-year or the ace. The problem wasn't that she had soft brown eyes like a bashful deer and the personality to match, or that she was tall and broad and her gentle hands were twice the size of Noya's, or that the first time Nishinoya saw her jump for a spike with her face focused and her eyes blazing it had taken the first-year all of eight minutes to acknowledge that she was smitten.

The problem was that Asahi had never shown any interest in girls, and that up until the second week of Nishinoya's career on the Karasuno volleyball team, when she woke up from a fuzzy and confusing dream involving Asahi in an onsen and realized abruptly that her lifetime of fixations on certain friends' warm smiles and pretty hands and soft hair had been much, much less than platonic, she had thought she was straight herself and therefore had the gaydar of a dead leaf.

How was she supposed to have any idea if Asahi liked girls? How was anyone supposed to know if _anyone_ liked girls?

"You could just ask her," Tanaka suggested, passing her best friend another popsicle. In the sweltering dog days of late July, they had convinced their captain to allow a minifridge and a fan in the pleasantly cool club room. The two first-years holed up there daily after practice, lying on the floor in their underwear and attempting to beat the heat.

" _I can't_ ," insisted Nishinoya, and took a mournful chomp out of the top of the popsicle. Tanaka shuddered.

"It's not natural that you do that. And why can't you?"

"Cause then she would _know!_ "

"Oh, come on," Tanaka pressed. "She dresses like a lesbian daydream."

Well, that certainly wasn't wrong. The first time Nishinoya had seen Asahi in casual clothes, she had nearly gone into cardiac arrest.

It had been the weekend before their first tournament, and Asahi had been selected to host the obligatory team sleepover. Asahi had stayed in her school clothes for most of the night, or at least until sometime after the tiny libero was fast asleep. The next day, Nishinoya, who was a morning person, woke up before the rest of the team and went downstairs to explore the house.

She hadn't prepared herself for wandering into the kitchen to see Asahi fixing breakfast in a pair of birkenstocks and casual clothes that haunted her for the next several months.

In addition to the birkenstocks, Asahi was wearing soft, worn jeans. Her plaid flannel stretched snug across her broad shoulders and strained over her intimidating chest, and where it was rolled up to her elbows, it revealed muscular forearms with a fine layer of hair. She had put on some upbeat music with a twangy guitar, and was humming along and dancing a little as she added water to the rice cooker.

Nishinoya stood rooted to the floor. Asahi was an awful dancer, with awkward shuffling steps and a sense of rhythm that was dubious at best. But at the same time, the Saturday-morning sun was casting a soft glow around her face, and the light in her serene smile more than made up for whatever move she was trying to do with her hands.

Nishinoya was given away when her phone dropped from her frozen fingers and clattered noisily against the floor.

Asahi looked up and caught sight of her, and the blood drained from her face. She lunged for the radio and cut off the music.

"U-um!"

Nishinoya's face was bright red, and for once, she was speechless.

"P-please pretend you didn't-"

" _You're a terrible dancer!_ " Nishinoya shouted, and fled back up the stairs with several loud thumps that had her half-asleep teammates complaining vehemently about the noise.

"You guys don't understand," Nishinoya groaned to the other first-years one day as they walked home together later that day. "She could _bench-press me_. I could fit my _entire body_ into one of the legs of her pants."

"You've got some weird tastes, Noya," Tanaka told her, and she flushed.

"I-it's not _just_ that she's big, okay? She's really kind! And animals love her! And it's kind of wimpy when she gets scared of things, but it's also kind of cute, but then she gets scared of _me_ -"

"Wait," said Ennoshita, "you want to be friends with her? Aren't you guys already friends?"

"It's not that!" Nishinoya wailed. " _I want to sit on her face!_ "

"Oh," said Ennoshita.

"Wait, you're _gay_?" Narita cocked her head. "Didn't you have a boyfriend at the beginning of this year?"

"Narita, haven't you ever heard of a bisexual?" Tanaka chided her, which Nishinoya appreciated, as she was too busy agonizing to make the correction herself.

"Oh yeah. Sorry, Noya."

Nishinoya made a helpless noise in response, and Kinoshita shook her head. "I can't say I see the appeal."

"She's _six feet tall_ ," Nishinoya moaned by way of explanation, and Ennoshita patted her shoulder in sympathy.

The second time Nishinoya saw her in casual clothes, the Karasuno team was taking the weekend to remodel their club room. Nishinoya was a few minutes late, as usual, and so by the time she arrived, she could already hear voices and movement inside.

She opened the door to the club room and went dead still.

Asahi was lifting boxes of jerseys down from the top shelf, periodically casting nervous looks at their captain, who was significantly shorter and was standing by with arms crossed as Asahi did the heavy work. Her cargo pants brushed the tops of her bare feet and hung low and loose around her hips, revealing a thin strip of tanned skin between their hem and the bottom of her snug white tank top. The weight of the box put a blessed strain on her bare biceps, and the strands of hair that had escaped her hairband were tangled around her heart-shaped face.

Nishinoya stood paralyzed in the doorway. Asahi bent to set down the last of the boxes with a huff and pulled the hem of her shirt up to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and suddenly the scratchy radio in the background and the chatter of their teammates were drowned out by the buzzing in Nishinoya's ears as the soft chubbiness of her belly caught her eyes and held them.

At Nishinoya's desperate squeak, Asahi glanced up and let go of her damp shirt. It stuck to her stomach, and Nishinoya gulped. "Ah, Nishinoya-"

Asahi's breathless voice was the last straw. Nishinoya slammed the door shut and bolted two steps before sound from inside the club room stopped her.

"She just left?" came Asahi's apologetic voice.

"You should really stop scaring her," Suga gently chided her friend.

"I-I'm not scaring her! _She_ scares _me!_ "

That was another problem: Asahi was afraid of her.

This wasn't really surprising, since Asahi was scared of just about everything and Nishinoya had enough self-awareness to know that her own personality vaguely resembled a forest fire. Even so, every time she blurted out blunt criticism, or yanked Asahi down to her level after a successful spike to shout praises into her face, or got a little too rowdy with Tanaka, Asahi looked at her like she was an oncoming steamroller.

She couldn't _help it!_ She didn't have a filter - she just said things as she thought them! How was she supposed to talk to someone who was terrified of her every word?

In the end, it was Ennoshita who found Nishinoya having a minor crisis in the last stall of the girls' bathroom.

"You have to come help eventually, you know," Ennoshita said through the bathroom door.

"I won't survive five minutes."

"Yes, you will. It's just lifting and cleaning stuff, you know."

"I'm only fifteen!" Nishinoya protested. "I'm too young to die!"

"Come on, she's a human being," Ennoshita urged her. "And she's just as intimidated by you as you are by her."

That was the opposite of helpful, but in the end, Ennoshita coaxed her out of the stall with the promise that she would at least make sure to keep Asahi's biceps on the other side of the room.

Progress was slow, but by the week before the Spring High, Nishinoya had at least managed to build a speaking relationship with her ace. Enough that she could sit alone with Asahi in the club room and eat lunch together without hyperventilating, although it still drove her to distraction when she caught sight of of Asahi's thigh muscles in her skirt.

Their off-and-on conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Kiyoko Shimizu, their knockout beauty of a manager. Nishinoya had harbored a tiny crush on her since the day they met, but it was more of a flickering candle as opposed to the two-story-tall bonfire that was her crush on Asahi. Nevertheless, Nishinoya's heart jumped as Kiyoko asked Asahi if she'd turned in her waiver yet. Asahi sheepishly admitted that she hadn't.

"You're looking wonderful today, Kiyoko-san!" Nishinoya shouted, too loud for their proximity.

Kiyoko gave her a look and left without responding.

"She's so pretty," Nishinoya said wistfully, watching her walk away.

"She is, isn't she?" agreed Asahi, with fondness in her voice. "And she's a very good friend."

They lapsed into brief silence, and then Asahi chuckled a little and rubbed the back of her neck. "Oh, I forgot you weren't around back then - we actually dated for a while when we were first-years. We're better as friends, though."

Nishinoya choked on her rice. Asahi glanced across at her, and then her eyes widened and she started thumping the smaller girl's back with full spiking force. "Oh - oh no! Nishinoya, you can't die!"

"Ow - _ow_ \- you're too strong to hit people's backs like that!"

" _I'm sorry!_ " the ace wailed, and sat on her hands.

No thanks to Asahi, Nishinoya swallowed the food and recovered enough to ask, in an embarrassingly squeaky voice, "You _dated?_ "

Asahi smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, she's way too good for me, I know-"

"You're _gay_?" Nishinoya was spluttering, and she could feel a blush creeping up her neck.

Asahi actually _laughed_ at her. "Doesn't it show?"

More spluttering, and subsequent laughter. Nishinoya's face was pink by now, but there was something warm and fluttery growing in her chest.

"Are you?" Asahi asked, and Nishinoya flushed deeper.

 _How did she just ask that so easily?_

"I figured out I'm bisexual at the beginning of this year," Nishinoya answered. "Thanks to you," she added under her breath.

Not quietly enough, though. Asahi's eyes flew wide, and she raised a hand to her open mouth. "Wh-what?"

 _Oh no._

"Um!" Nishinoya jumped up, then sat back down again, frantically looking anywhere but at Asahi. _Shit. Fuck._ " _Um!_ "

"So you-" Asahi gestured to herself, still staring at Nishinoya. A questioning smile began to spread across her face.

"Um-" Nishinoya's heart was doing acrobatics in her chest, but she couldn't lie to her. "Yes-"

That warm and fluttery feeling swelled bigger when Asahi turned towards her, pulled her into her lap, put a finger under Nishinoya's chin, and-

Realization of their proximity hit Asahi like a truck, and the ace immediately withdrew, looking more panicked by the second. "Ah - oh no! I'm so sorry! You probably don't - I probably misinterpreted - oh nooooo-"

"N- _no_! I-"

Nishinoya gave up on words and just kissed her.

Asahi was trembling at first, but a hard bite to her lower lip shocked her into responding. Her lips were a little chapped, but she clearly had a lot more experience than Nishinoya, who was running on prayers and determination. When their noses bumped together, they broke apart an inch or two, breathing in small puffs against each other's lips.

"Wow," Asahi murmured, which was really unfair because shouldn't _Nishinoya_ be the one saying that, when Asahi was big and strong and warm and smelled like Old Spice underneath her and was resting her forehead against Nishinoya's and rubbing her lower back and smiling at her like she couldn't believe she was awake?

Nishinoya swiped her tongue across her lips. "Can we-"

"Again-?"

" _Yeah-_ "

She tipped her head back, inviting. Asahi took the hint and dropped a line of soft kisses down her neck, gentle and sweet and light enough to make her shiver.

It was nice, but Nishinoya hadn't gone after six feet of muscle because she wanted to be treated like porcelain.

Making a frustrated noise, she took a firm grip on Asahi's hair and yanked. Something low rumbled in Asahi's throat, and she bit into her shoulder, sending goosebumps racing down Nishinoya's back. Asahi's hands cupped her tiny butt and squeezed, hard, pulling Nishinoya closer as she sucked a red mark into her skin.

 _That's more like it._

Nishinoya was breathless and quivering by the time Asahi released her. She immediately caressed the hickey with her tongue, soothing the bruising skin and raising more goosebumps up Nishinoya's neck. Asahi's lips pressed briefly against the base of her throat, whispered up past her jawline, and started nibbling on her ear. Nishinoya whimpered, and she could feel Asahi's smile against her cheeks.

Teasing. Asahi was _teasing_ her.

"Oh, come _on_ ," Nishinoya growled, and pulled on Asahi's hair again. Asahi finally gave in and kissed her full on the lips, slow and languid and filling her with heady delight.

They broke apart, breathing hard and still staring at each other.

"You've liked me _all year_?" Asahi's words could've been a taunt, but the wonder in her tone took the bite out of them.

Nishinoya gave her an accusing look anyway. "You liked me _back?_ "

Asahi's face went pink. "Um - I'm not very good at talking about these things-"

"Why didn't you _do_ anything about it?"

"Why didn't _you_ -"

" _I thought you were straight-"_

"You thought _I_ was _straight?_ "

Asahi started laughing at her, and to shut her up, Nishinoya kissed her again.


End file.
